Building brick



Patented Aug. 19, 1941 UNITED STATES PATENT oFFlCE 2,253,234 7 BUILDINGBRICK William Stanley Grice, London, England Application October 13,1938, Serial No. 234,830

' In Great Britain October 13, 1937 1 Claim.

This invention relates to improved methods of and bricks for buildingwalls and the like, one of the objects of the invention being to providean improved form of rhomboidal brick which is designed to enablesymmetrical laying with a desired thickness of bond andneat finishing tobe achieved, where the advantages appertaining to the use of rhomboidalbricks are rendered practical for ordinary building purposes.

According to this invention, a rhomboidal brick is constructed withsides related by the expression (2S+B) =L where S is the length of eachshort side of the brick, L is the length of the long side of the brick,and B is a required thickness of bonding at the face of the wall between any two bricks laid'side by side. The angle a of the rhomboid isgiven by cosine a termined thickness of bonding between them, a

true rhomb will be formed and an inner corner of one brick in one sideof the rhomb will coincide with an outer corner of the next brick in theopposite side of the rhomb, and accordingly in a course of these brickslaid as headers each bonding-joint on each face of the course will be inline with a joint on the opposite face of the course. The word headermeans, as commonly understood in England, the short exposed face, andthe long exposed face is likewise termed stretcher. Moreover, differentcourses laid alternately as headers and stretchers, may have the twolines of bricks of the stretcher course laid so that each pair ofstretcher bricks comes exactly over a pair of header bricks of the nextcourse.

By this means a symmetrical wall of great strength can be built, itbeing possible to achieve the equivalent strength of a 9 inch thick Wallbuilt of ordinary bricks, with an actual perpendicular thickness of lessthan 9 inches; or greater strength than the ordinary 9 inch brick wallwith an actual perpendicular thickness of 9 inches. The length of theshort sides of the brick will approximate to that of the short sides ofan ordinary brick, i. e. about 4 inches.

The invention will be further described with reference to theaccompanying drawing, whereshow how the construction of each brick isarrived at;

Figure 2 is a section on the line IL-I-I of Figure 1;

Figure 3 is a face view of bricks in two courses of a wall where thecourses are laid alternately as headers and stretchers;

Figure 4 is a plan View of two closure bricks which are adapted forinterfitment with the improved rhomboidal bricks; and

Figure 5 is a plan View of the corner of two walls meeting at rightangles and incorporating rhomboidal bricks of this invention, the cornerbeing finished by an alternative form of closure brick as shown.

In Figure 1 two identical bricks I and 2 are shown laid side by sidewith a predetermined bonding thickness B on the face of the wall. Theshort sides of the bricks are designated S, the long sides L, and theacute angle between the sides is a. For a given bonding thickness 13 anda given length of short side S, the length of the long side L and theangle a is obtained by the expression hereinbefore referred to. Whenlaid as shown in Figure 1, the bricks will have the corners C2 and C3 ofbrick I on one face of the wall, and these corners will be disposedperpendicularly opposite the corners Cl and C4 .of the brick 2 on theopposite face of the wall.

The two bricks will thus form aperfect rhomb of equal length sides, andbricks 3 of the next course laid as stretchers (as shown by the chaindot lines) with the predetermined bonding thickness between, willcoincide therewith.

Where considerable strength is required, or substantial concealment ofvertical joints, one or each long side of the improved brick is formedwith a recess 4. Two bricks may then be laid side by side in contiguousrelationship so that practically no bonding thickness appears on theouter faces of the wall. The term B in the expression aforesaid is thuseliminated or will be very small, and the bricks may be designed on thisbasis. For continuous uninterrupted walls, such as railway stationplatforms, sea walls, retaining walls, the improved brick can be usedand the vertical joints in one course need bear no relation to thevertical joints of the other courses, since the bond is automatic, andthe joints being so thin will hardly be noticed.

Bricks with recesses 4 as just set forth enable reinforcing rods 5 to beincorporated in a wall, the rods passing vertically through the passagesformed by the coinciding recesses of the superposed courses. It will benoted that coincident recesses are obtainable because the bricks inadjacent courses can be laid diagonally in opposite directions toprovide a diagonal bond as is usual with rhomboidal bricks. Greater roomis provided for the reinforcing rods, when the bricks are laid with therecesses 4 of each pair in a course together, as shown in Figures 1, 2and 3. Whether or not the reinforcing rods are used, such recesses 4provide for continuous and substantial columns of bonding verticallythrough the wall, as will be readily understood from the drawing.

For the purposes of finishing off a wall or joining two walls togetherat right angles, two forms of closure bricks are provided, as shown inFigures 4 and 5 respectively. One-form of closure brick 6, Figure 4, hasthe shape of. atriangle of which the angle made between each inclinedside IS and each base side BS of the triangle is equal to the angle oz,and the lengths of the-sides are such thatwhen two of these triangular.bricks are placed with two inclined sides IS. adjacent but spaced bythe givenbonding thickness--B-- measured parallel to the wall facesatrue rhomb is formed correspondingv to the rhomb obtained by placing tworhomboidal bricks together as aforesaid. Thus BS is equal to the length.of the long sides L of .the rhomboidal bricks.

The second formof closure brick 1, Figure5,

comes at the end of the wall and forms a right angle corner to the wall.It is. quadrilateral in shape. 'Whereit is .intendedto completethe wall,it will have three sides. at right angles and the fourth side inclinedto correspond .withlthe inclination of the long sides .of the rhomboidalbricks, i. e. it will make an. angleulwithone of its right angle sides.Where two outer walls are to be joined togetherat. right angles, asshown, this corner closure brick will have two sides at right angles,one CS being of a length equal to the perpendicular distance Dbetweentheshort sides S of the rhomboidal brick herein defined, and the otherCS being. shorter and equal in length to (D'S-B) where S is thelengthofthe short side of the rhomboidal brick. and B is the given thicknessofbonding, asaforesaid. The other two sides of this corner brick are atright angles to each other, .but incline, the one at an angle a to thelong side, and the other at an angle (180 -cc) to the short side.

The inclined sides of these closure. bricks may be recessed to providefor concealment of the bonding and the housing of reinforcing rods aspreviously described.

Where the bonding or joint is not to be concealed, its thickness on theface of the wall will be preferably a quarter of an inch, i. e. B= A".If the bricks are formed with recesses as before described, and thebricks are designed for laying with a predetermined bonding thicknessbetween them, these recesses will, in addition to providingroom forreinforcingrods, enable a keyed bonding to be obtained between bricks,thereby to increase the strength of the joint.

The improved rhomboidal bricks may be laid as headers with their ends orshort sides on the face of the work, the bricks of alternate coursesbeing oppositely inclined so that each brick of one course is bonded onthe top of a plurality of bricks of the lower course.

Various other forms of laying the bricks may be adopted introducingstretchers, i. e. where a long side of'the brick is exposed on the faceof the work, the improved rhomboidal bricks, together with their closurebricks as before described, enabling most requirements in the design ofwalls to be dealt with economically and in a practical manner, withsimplicity in laying and neatness in finishing.

All bricks as herein described will be provided with the usual frogs 8on their opposite flat faces to accommodate bonding between courses ofthe bricks.

I claim:

A wall comprising bricks of rhomboidal shape in plan, each brickhavingparallel side faces and parallel end faces extending from side toside of the brick and diagonally relative to said side faces, at leastone side face of each brick having a recess therein spaced inwardly atits ends from the ends of the brick, said bricks eing laidinsuperimposed courses, the bricks in certain of the courses extendingparallel to the wall and the bricks in other courses extendingtransversely of the wall, the recesses of superimposed bricks of thedifferent courses having the medial portions of their recessesvertically. alined, vertical reinforcing rods disposed inthe alinedmedial portions of the recesses of superimposed bricks, and bondingmaterial in said recesses.

WILLIAMSTANLEY GRICE.

